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SDG Reviews 'The Muppets' (9843)

It's time to play the music: The Muppet magic is finally back in this refreshingly old-school family film.

The Muppets don’t rap or bust hip-hop moves. That in itself is almost revolutionary nowadays, when adorable family-franchise characters spitting bars seems practically de rigueur (e.g., Happy Feet Two, The Smurfs). True, Chris Cooper has a short rap scene, but a) he’s not a Muppet, and b) it’s funny because he’s an evil white businessman, not because he’s cuddly.

There is no crude humor or innuendo. No grating contemporary pop soundtrack. There are unabashedly retro original tunes, like the catchy Life’s a Happy Song and a very funny “dramatic” duet called Man or Muppet? There’s also an almost lump-in-throat-inducing reprise of the classic The Rainbow Connection. And, yes, there are pop songs, but they’re mostly from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s: Paul Simon, Mahna Mahna, Starship (okay, odd choice there).

Even when they dip their toes into something more recent, like Nirvana, the Muppets transform it into barbershop-quartet style, which is really kind of wonderful. Jack Black thinks it’s horrifying, but that only makes me like it all the more. That Black is tied up the whole time makes me want to hug someone and burst into song. (Don’t ask me to explain why he’s tied up. You want me to spoil everything?)

Ahem. The point is: The Muppets is not trying to be hip and edgy, or at least any hipper and edgier than the Muppets ever were. This is quite deliberately not a reboot or reimagining or any such thing. Perhaps we can call it a revisiting. Like this summer’s charming Winnie the Pooh (also from Disney), The Muppets is a happy throwback, very much of a piece with material that my generation grew up with, eclipsing the lameness of recent direct-to-video efforts. Who would have thought two classic family franchises that have lain fallow for so long would be reborn in the same year?

The Muppets shrewdly taps into twin streams of Muppet nostalgia: the Muppet movies, especially the original, and also The Muppet Show. It’s been a dozen years since the Muppets were last on the big screen (in the uninspired Muppets From Space) and longer since The Muppet Show was on the air, so this movie is about getting the old gang together again after they’ve all gone their separate ways.

I like my friend Jeff Overstreet’s way of thinking of Kermit the Frog’s journey to Hollywood in the first Muppet Movie with dreams of “making millions of people happy” as a metaphor for the whole Muppet phenomenon, with Kermit symbolizing Jim Henson himself. In that spirit, this new film can also be seen as a kind of self-referential metaphor: an effort by fans to honor a formative influence by actually bringing their inspirations out of retirement, returning to the site of former glory, reaching out to fans long gone — all the while wondering whether the fans will turn up, whether the Muppets still matter today.

The onscreen fan is a Muppet named Walter (performed by Peter Linz) who grows up adoring Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo and the others from afar, not unlike director James Bobin and co-writers Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel, who also plays Walter’s brother Gary. When Walter says to Gonzo, “When I was a kid I saw you reciting Hamlet while riding your motorcycle through a flaming hoop … and it made me believe I could do anything,” it’s not just a goofy line. It’s a goofiness that the creative team learned, in part, from the Muppets, and in Walter’s appreciation, it is an echo of the filmmakers’ own.

It’s a typically Muppety absurdity that Walter is a Muppet and his brother Gary is human, but no one seems to notice. I was reminded of the conceit in The Great Muppet Caper of Kermit and Fozzie as supposedly indistinguishable twin brothers. (Side by side in front of a mirror: “Which one are you?” “I’m the one on the right.”)

Segel is right at home in the Muppetverse, and his confidence that Amy Adams would be too is fully justified. (Given Enchanted, it wasn’t much of a stretch.) The short video (now online) Segel made with Kermit to woo Adams to join the cast is surreally apt, and should turn up in the DVD extras.

Adams plays Mary, Gary’s longtime girlfriend. Their relationship is sort of in limbo: Mary waits devotedly for Gary to pop the question, but Gary is preoccupied with his brother’s needs. At times this subplot takes on too much of a life of its own, and Adams gets a montage duet with Miss Piggy that doesn’t seem necessary to the film, though Adams gives it her considerable all.

A movie, as the Muppets themselves are well aware, needs a plot, and this one has one of the oldest: The old Muppet Theater is imperiled by an unscrupulous businessman named Tex Richman (Cooper), and he can’t be stopped unless the Muppets raise $10 million.

After one of Richman’s flunkies mentions the loophole, another muses, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were reciting some sort of plot point that will be important later.” This is the way characters in Muppet movies talked back in the day. When Kermit shakes his head and says there’s no way they can raise the money, Mary sadly observes, “This is going to be a very short movie.” Of course The Muppets also perpetuates the usual parade of celebrity cameos. Who wouldn’t want to do the Muppets?

Meanwhile, what’s become of the various Muppets since the glory days? Sadly but not surprisingly, we learn that Kermit (Steve Whitmire, the man behind Kermit since Jim Henson’s death) and Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobson, replacing Frank Oz) haven’t spoken in a long time. Animal is in anger management. Sam the Eagle hosts a cable news show. Most unsettlingly, Fozzie (Jacobson for Oz again) is in Reno doing stand-up with a dodgy Muppet tribute band. It’s safe to say that Segel is well aware of the danger of fobbing off a poor imitation in place of the real thing. The Muppets gets it right.

It’s not perfect. The morose doubts of the first half linger too long. (Remember how the audience used to sing “Why don’t you get things started?”) The very end is a bit slapdash, with a couple of curiously arbitrary choices for key plot points.

Still, the energy and charm of the third act will leave viewers with smiles on their faces, and it’s nice to be left wanting more rather than the alternative. Kermit’s wish in the original Muppet Movie was to make millions of people happy. Thanks to The Muppets, he’ll go on doing just that.

Comments

When we think of Muppet movie “canon,” I think we have to allow for the extent to which the Muppets are explicitly show-biz figures. A Muppet Christmas Carol presumably “fits” in the Muppetverse (I would feel silly saying Muppet “continuity”) in the same way that Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol fits into the existing Magoo reality, i.e., Magoo plays Scrooge on Broadway. Likewise, it is eminently in keeping with established Muppet reality for the Muppets to make a Christmas Carol film.

Posted by Linebyline on Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011 9:27 PM (EDT):

Huh. I just put a bunch of extra spaces on the blank line. (I think one would work, but I use five just to be safe.) I didn’t think there was a way to indent the first line of a paragraph, but if we can use HTML character entities, then five nonbreaking spaces should do the trick.

Anyway, when I hear “reboot” I think “starting over with a brand-new continuity.” The Christopher Nolan Batman films come to mind. What you call a “semi-reboot” is just an indication that certain entries weren’t canon. (Though “semi-reboot” is as good a term for that as any.)

And anyway, plenty of Muppet movies aren’t canon—unless you want me to believe that Mrs. Cratchit and Benjamina Gunn both exist in the Muppet universe and look exactly like Miss Piggy, and Rizzo and the other rats are time-travelers. (Which, now that I think of it, isn’t that far-fetched for the Muppets…)

Hm, not sure why my “reboot (fiction)” Wikipedia link didn’t work (I’ll have to fix that). As I think the article indicates, my usage is pretty much in keeping with the standard usage in serial or franchise fiction:

The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas. Effectively, the writer(s) declare all established fictive history to be irrelevant to the new storyline, and start the series over as if brand-new.

Through reboots, filmmakers can revamp and reinvigorate franchises to attract new fans and stimulate revenue. Therefore, reboots can be seen as attempts to rescue franchises that have grown “stale”.

As you indicate, this is comparable to “reimagining,” with the proviso that “reboot” is specific to serial or franchise fiction. Thus, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a reimagining, but it isn’t a reboot.

To clarify, I’m not against reboots per se—I very much like Star Trek, Batman Begins, and Casino Royale. I even mostly liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes, though I was ultimately put off by existential qualms.

I didn’t want a reboot of The Mupppets, because I think The Muppets is just so wedded to Henson’s vision that if you can’t honor that, then you shouldn’t do the Muppets at all. By contrast, Star Trek had really grown beyond Roddenberry’s vision before Abrams came along—and it had also grown “stale,” or more precisely, mythology-bound (to use a term I coined).

By contrast, the Muppets hadn’t grown “stale,” they had lost their way. The Muppets brings them home again.

P.S. There are at least two ways to create combox paragraph space. One is to type an extra hard return between paragraphs (three rather than only two). Another way is to type an HTML nonbreaking space entity (&nbsp;) in the blank space. (If you’ve got HTML tags (for italics or blockquote or something) at the beginning or end of paragraphs, use this method; otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Oh, and I have a third way: I can edit my comments after posting…which is why my Wikipedia links now work. :-) )

Posted by The Ubiquitous on Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011 4:22 AM (EDT):

That’s a fair understanding of reboot, but probably more synonymous with “reimagining.” I dislike reimaginings for the same reason you do—- if that approach had been tried with the Muppets, we would have found ourselves stuck with something like the Loonatics. I understand reboots as being the first step in restarting a franchise, marking time because there’s no space for an actual movie. We’re too busy meeting characters and getting the gang back together.
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For my money, when Muppet movies aren’t about “putting on a show” as a literal plot device, they’re founded on gimmicks. The Great Muppet Caper is the one that managed to avoid both, and this is why I like it the best. The Muppets (2011), despite some catchy numbers, reminded me of a reboot in the worst way; falling into one cliche when not falling into another.
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(How do you indent? I must know!)

I take the word “reboot” to refer to a work that significantly reworks or rethinks a franchise—that attempts to breathe new life into its source material by offering a fresh creative vision or interpretation, usually discarding a significant amount of established material and/or sensibility in the process.

For example, the recent Star Trek or Planet of the Apes movies, or the latest Casino Royale, were all reboots. Race to Witch Mountain was a reboot attempt. You could call the recent Smurfs movie, or the first of the recent Alvin & the Chipmunks movie, reboots of a sort.

I would hesitate to call Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns a reboot in this sense because it so clearly embraces the first two Christopher Reeve movies—although it does discard the latter two Reeve films, so I guess to that extent you could call it a “semi-reboot.” Same with The Muppets: You could call it a semi-reboot in that it ignores recent direct-to-small-screen Muppet endeavors (since it establishes that the Muppets haven’t seen each other in many years), but The Muppets embraces the earliest Muppet films as well as “The Muppet Show,” rather than trying to rethink the Muppets in a significantly new way. Your own term “valentine” suggests as much, even though you use it semi-disparagingly.

I understand your “too much valentine and not enough Muppetry” complaint, but I disagree. The Muppets is reintroducing (that would have been a good word!) the Muppets to a new generation, and it has to be permitted to find its own way of doing so. It’s not the 1980s any more. “The Muppet Show” is not on the air. The audience has changed. The Muppets recognizes this, and takes a different route into Muppetry than earlier films. Still, the destination is fundamentally in harmony with what has come before.

Posted by The Ubiquitous on Tuesday, Nov 29, 2011 3:46 AM (EDT):

Didn’t feel like a reboot? In what way? I very much felt the drag of a reboot. It was nice to have a valentine to the Muppets, but there was too much valentine and not enough Muppetry. I’m watching the Great Muppet Caper—- there’s absolutely no comparison. It was probably about as good as Muppets Take Manhattan.

Check out my 30-second review of The Muppets—and David DiCerto’s 30-second take on Arthur Christmas—at my Register blog.

Posted by Joe H. on Monday, Nov 28, 2011 1:43 PM (EDT):

Growing up on the Muppet Show and being an absolute fan of the puppets with character, I saw the movie this past weekend with an aisle-full of friends. My only two gripes with the film were A) the few-too-many guilt-inducing reminders that the world forgot about/didn’t care anymore for the muppets and B) certain cameos by celebrities who (IMO) clearly do NOT belong in the muppet universe (eg. the polarizing Sarah Silverman; personally, I dub her the title “most vile female comedian”).

P.S. I too began to choke up as soon as I heard Kermit strumming his banjo.

Posted by Edward C. on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011 2:41 AM (EDT):

I loved the film, but I was startled at the end of the closing credits that *Playboy* was given an acknowledgement. Really? In a MUPPET movie? I don’t remember any reference to Playboy in the film proper. Must have been *very* fleeting.

Posted by Margaret on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011 2:30 AM (EDT):

Yup, Muppet Christmas Carol is superb. And the music is sufficiently catchy that I’ve always wondered why it hasn’t been adapted for the stage. We’re not talking Broadway, necessarily, but for high school or community theater? Good stuff.

P.S. Thanks Matthew, I’ve heard that sort of comment before. Yes, definitely check out The Great Muppet Caper, and I’ll be reporting back on A Muppet Christmas Carol in a few weeks or so—we’ll make it part of our Christmas season viewing!

FWIW, I went back today to The Muppets with an audience of nine kids of all ages (not counting a baby) and seven adults (including my 17-year-old daughter). Most of the kids had little previous Muppet exposure. All of us enjoyed it, from my very Muppet-resistant 13-year-old son (who was quite uncharmed by previous Muppet encounters) to the 4 and 5-year-olds. I’ve heard from other families also going to see it this weekend. I think the filmmakers have a hit on their hands, one that will have legs in the weeks to come.

Posted by Matthew Rees on Saturday, Nov 26, 2011 6:33 PM (EDT):

Steven, you’re in for a treat! The Great Muppet Caper is my favorite of the “straight” Muppet movies too (though I’ve never seen The Muppets Take Manhattan—maybe I should do something about that). But my favorite Muppet movie ever is Christmas Carol. The first time I saw it, I was expecting it to be entertaining but inconsequential. I wasn’t expecting it to be so faithful to the spirit of the original story. And Michael Caine absolutely nails the role of Scrooge.

I 100% agree with this review…according its criticisms. It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely an A-. Saw it with my sister (who I used to watch the Muppets with every Saturday night at 730) and 6 kids ages 4-11…all loved!

Posted by Elenka on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 11:58 AM (EDT):

Sounds like a movie to look forward to.

Just one quibble: ‘Tex Richman’? As in, a rich man from Texas? A wee bit of anti-capitalism perhaps? Ugh…

Posted by Lisa Schmidt on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 9:37 AM (EDT):

The Rainbow Connection? SCOOOOOORRRRRRE! Excited to see this one.

Posted by Laurel Roy on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 9:29 AM (EDT):

Having missed the original, I will anxiously await until it is available on cable (too poor to see it on the big screen). Maybe buy the DVD someday…we’ll see.
Have Muppet Treasure Island and Muppet Christmas Carol DVDs respectively.

Posted by sallyr on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 12:52 AM (EDT):

So glad to hear that the muppet movie recaptures some of their old glory. I was trying to watch tv with my nephew and gave up after surfing around for a few minutes. It is unbelievable to think of what passes as “primetime viewing” these days. I have such fond memories of watching the Muppet Show with family and friends back in the day.

Seems impossibly innocent now, but adults and kids used to really enjoy watching tv shows together back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and the Muppet Show was one of the best. I feel sorry for kids growing up in this culture.

FWIW, my favorite Muppet movie, even more than the original, has always been The Great Muppet Caper. Although believe it or not I have yet to catch A Muppet Christmas Carol—just got the DVD today, as a matter of fact, so I’ll be rectifying that soon.

Posted by Elizabeth on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 6:50 PM (EDT):

I never thought that ANY of the Muppet movies lived up to the original, until Treasure Island and Christmas Carol…then they made the dreadful Wizard of Oz…ugh. (I will admit to getting a kick out of Muppets from Space.) Glad to hear that this film taps into the original fun and silliness. We will most likely see it soon :)

Posted by Linebyline on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 4:27 PM (EDT):

Shoot, I’m already smiling just from reading the review. Might have to pry my butt off the couch (anybody got a crowbar?) and go see this one.

Posted by Maggie on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 3:21 PM (EDT):

The plot sounds like another Muppet movie where they were going to lose their theater and some loophole was found to save it.

Posted by Paul H on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 2:37 PM (EDT):

Thanks for the very helpful review! My son got a gift certificate to a movie theater for his birthday, and I wondered how many months we would have to wait for a good family film so that we could use it. It looks like the wait won’t be so long after all, as he and his brothers love the Muppets.

Posted by Mark Wilson on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 2:31 PM (EDT):

The last great Muppet film was “The Muppets Take Mannhattan”. It looks as if it is possible that the Muppets may be making a comeback. It looks like a good weekend for Children’s movies. Both Arthur Christmas and Hugo are also getting good reviews. There is still Puss in Boots as well still in theaters. But then again there is still Happy Feet 2 and Jack and Jill.

Posted by victor on Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 1:52 PM (EDT):

Wow. This is really gratifying to read. After so many truly dreadful Muppets retreads, we really had no reason to expect that this would be any different. I’m glad to hear that they did right by the franchise and I’m actually looking forward to seeing the movie now (instead of merely resigned to it).

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